Are Spirits Scientifically Possible?

[Abbadon]

By ‘substance’ do you mean matter? Are you asking if a thing is not made of matter, what it is made of? I don’t know the answer, but I wouldn’t rule out ‘things’ that are not made of matter. The only such thing that I know of directly on a regular basis is my conscience. What is conscience made of? Maybe its made of emotico-atoms. I have no idea.

We would need some tools to investigate it. It seems that the universe is set up in a way that makes it hard to do that. But maybe in the future.

No substance need not be matter… It;s just something, something we can give a name to and something that is tangible in some strange form or another, or at least interpretable as tangible.
Well your thoughts occur in your brain as I stated before so consciousness would be apart of those brain patterns, its a collection of interpreted data to represent something usable in your brain. All that we so far understand it to be is neurons firing and what not.

I guess gravity is a phenomenon, a force made up of strong atomic forces of all the atoms.

Yea but does this force have a substance like say a gravitron, I remember hearing this word. Forces it would seem do not have substance to them, or maybe my physics knowledge is outdated as it probably is. But a force like gravity is a long way from an immaterial being that is capable of communication.

I was being facetious when saying you had faith in science. I was trying to show how your insistence that consciousness only has a physical dimension is irrational, and that it is actually based on a blind faith in science-as-we-know-it-today rather than real objective analysis. My point was that perhaps your insistence on sticking to science is as irrational as you think our faith is.

No but its not, because my mind is easily changed through evidence and reasoning. I have changed my mind many times. But the evidence needs be solid and the reasoning good. It’s not a faith position. I do however trust other scientists to peer review each other and to do their jobs. I trust what physics state, even though I do not understand alot of it. because i know that if it was incorrect a hundred physicists would jump on it to fix it.

You should look into it! You’ll find that science can look at behaviour (how did the person react to the pain, did he scream, etc.), physical measurements (brain scans) or by asking the subject to rate the pain on a scale of one to ten.

You’ll find that there isn’t really any way to scientifically compare people’s subjective experiences. Science requires objectivity (thats one of the whole points of science), and by definition subjectivity is not objective. Only one person can measure/see/experience how bad the pain hurts subjectively, and thats the person with the pain. Of course, this is frustrating to people trying to use science to study these things. Some of them will be so frustrated that they’ll convince themselves that subjectivity simply does not exist, that it is in fact a physical state that can be measured with a machine. Don’t be one of those people!

See when you ask someone how painful it is if there is enough corelative data with X form of brain scan. Then we can say that in Z people Y readings indicate W. It may be subjective, but our subjective response should be indicated in the brain. Pain may reveal its self as A and our interpretation of it as B, or they may both be simply B. you must realise that we interpret subjective information in the brain. So although we may not be measuring how painful something is, we are measuring how painful a person thinks something is. Does that make sense?

Your objectively measuring the level of subjectivity. Kind of.

It’s just my favorite theory about how a person’s spirit interacts with the brain. Subject to scientific and metaphysical study Quantum physics has opened up a way for the physical universe to be controlled by a non-physical thing without violating the laws of physics.

I’m sorry but I don’t even know what a spirit is let alone how it interacts with the brain. And my mind blows at quantum physics but i’ve never heard of physicits talking about it and spirits can you explain? You don’t need to dumb down the physics terminology I can figure it out.

Well, I would never believe that any of the software programs I’ve written would have subjective experience. But like you said, they’re not really AI. But isn’t AI just a more complex software program? How would this subjective experience arise within the program? Is it something the programmer has to code in?

Well A.I is capable of creating its own code. It would think and reason for its self. And would be self aware. I do not see why something like that could not have a subjective expereince. In fact it may go beyond to the point where we cannot even fathom what it is, what we may call feeling, because these concepts and thoughts are completely different. We would have an entity with a completely new set of subjective thoughts and experiences.

Well I don’t know if other animals have those experiences like us. For all I know, even inanimate objects have subjective experience. Maybe rocks experience suffering when we crack them in two. How would I know? There is no way to measure it scientifically.

We know to suffer you need a brain and a nervous system. If you cannot feel nor comprehend pain you do not suffer it. A rock suffers no more than an oxygen atom. There is no way to measure it scientifically because it does not exist. If we cut a tree and the tree grows again but with a marker that signifies when and where it was cut, then we could say that the tree “remembers” but that is using the term loosely. It may remember but it cannot recall.

 

[cpayne]

Anything with a unified nature is a substance. It doesn’t have to be material.

By the way, what does “scientifically possible” mean? I understand the question if it’s “Is the existence of spirits possible?” But I don’t understand what “scientifically possible” even means.

 

[Starwynd]

There is some evidence, though and it is scant.

There have been some anomalous pictures that have not been dismissed as fakes and then there’s evp, or electronic voice phenomena.

 

[Abbadon]

Anything with a unified nature is a substance. It doesn’t have to be material.

By the way, what does “scientifically possible” mean? I understand the question if it’s “Is the existence of spirits possible?” But I don’t understand what “scientifically possible” even means.

Thats a good point. Perhaps spirits may be logically possible but not scientifically? Or perhaps crowonsnow was leaving room for other explorations for the truth of our reality other than through a scientific method. Although I cannot think of one.

 

[crowonsnow]

Anything with a unified nature is a substance. It doesn’t have to be material.

Give me an example of what you have in mind other than a spirit.

By the way, what does “scientifically possible” mean? I understand the question if it’s “Is the existence of spirits possible?” But I don’t understand what “scientifically possible” even means.

For something to be scientifically possible it must be scientifically understandable, which simply means that it will obey laws and its behavior will be predictable once those laws are known.

 

[Dee_Dee_King]

Until better theories come along. In science your theory is not excepted unless the math is right, so to speak. Unless you have evidence to back up your findings.

until you can physically detect a string, they are as real as personalities, spirits and intellects.

i can infer a spirit by legitimate cases of possession. while it’s not as empiristic as string theory, it is none the less like string theory, inferred based on the observations. there are many cases on line or in books you can read about. there are physical symptoms and actions caused by the evil spirit.

On the other hand we can observe personalities and intellect

i can observe the effects of spirits as well: hitler.

if we can observe a personality, what color is it? how much does it weigh? what does it taste like? is it hot or cold? how hard is it to cut in half?

if you can’t answer those questions, according to your logic, you better not believe in them either. personalities are as superstitious as spirits and God.

 

[Neil_Anthony]

Well A.I is capable of creating its own code. It would think and reason for its self. And would be self aware. I do not see why something like that could not have a subjective expereince. In fact it may go beyond to the point where we cannot even fathom what it is, what we may call feeling, because these concepts and thoughts are completely different. We would have an entity with a completely new set of subjective thoughts and experiences.

How could you tell if such a AI program had subjective experience?

We know to suffer you need a brain and a nervous system. If you cannot feel nor comprehend pain you do not suffer it. A rock suffers no more than an oxygen atom. There is no way to measure it scientifically because it does not exist. If we cut a tree and the tree grows again but with a marker that signifies when and where it was cut, then we could say that the tree “remembers” but that is using the term loosely. It may remember but it cannot recall.

How do you know that to suffer you need a brain? Where/when was this demonstrated?! You ruled out somehow that things without a brain don’t have subjective feeling?

If you were able to do that, lets apply the same test to the AI, and see if it has subjective feeling. I’m really excited to see how you do this

 

[Abbadon]

How could you tell if such a AI program had subjective experience?

How do you tell if a person does? Other than your self of course…

How do you know that to suffer you need a brain? Where/when was this demonstrated?! You ruled out somehow that things without a brain don’t have subjective feeling?

By brain I’m really talking about something that carries out cognitive processes. So you need to be able to comprehend suffering to suffer. Just becuase you have a brain does not mean you will suffer, but you need one to suffer.

Lets take pain, because thats the easiest form of suffering to measure. You need a way of detecting the pain (nervous system) and a way of interpreting the pain (brain). Without these things it is either just a reflex or is nothing.

Things without a brain do not have subjective feelings, not the way we understand them anyway. How can they? How can they have any sort of feeling at all?

If you were able to do that, lets apply the same test to the AI, and see if it has subjective feeling. I’m really excited to see how you do this

You can’t apply the same test to the A.I. DIfferent kind of brain, you probably could not apply the same test once the type of data you are measuring changes beyond a certain point. Maybe you could have a range of accuracy, within say brains of different species here on earth. But if you went to something alien with a completely new brain structure or something so different as an artificial brain, then your out of luck…

I think with A.I it was something to do with lines of junk code appearing that do not have anything to do with the data or any of its main capacities. But has linked associations with possible emotions or possible awareness. There would be code that was not meant to be there and seems to do nothing. I cannot fathom how a self aware computer would think. Or what kind of emotions it would have. They may be similar to human emotions or maybe completely different. I guess alot of that would depend on how the A.I comes about. Honestly I don’t know enough about computer programming to tell you. All my opinions are coming from pop science magazine articles and to much science fiction.

 

[Neil_Anthony]

How do you tell if a person does? Other than your self of course…

I don’t think we can, scientifically. And I think that demonstrates why science isn’t very good at measuring everything, at least not yet.

You can’t apply the same test to the A.I. DIfferent kind of brain, you probably could not apply the same test once the type of data you are measuring changes beyond a certain point. Maybe you could have a range of accuracy, within say brains of different species here on earth. But if you went to something alien with a completely new brain structure or something so different as an artificial brain, then your out of luck…

That’s the problem. Let’s say that we conclude somehow that this AI experiences suffering. I don’t think you could ever prove that conclusion, but for sake of argument, lets say you do it. Then how could you compare the amount of suffering of the AI to the amount of suffering a human experiences?

I don’t think you’d be able to, at least not using any science we can even begin to comprehend today. It just shows that science really has some limitations. And therefore, lack of scientific evidence for something to do with subjective experience (i.e. a hypothesis about a human spirit) really shouldn’t mean all that much to us.

 

[Wirraway]

is there an accepted definition of “spirit”? seems like defining what you’re trying to establish is the starting point.

 

[Strategery]

Somewhat off topic, but:

Faith is belief without reason

This isn’t true at all. It’s belief without reason that is acceptable to you. That doesn’t mean it’s without reason.

 

[Abbadon]

I don’t think we can, scientifically. And I think that demonstrates why science isn’t very good at measuring everything, at least not yet.

That’s the problem. Let’s say that we conclude somehow that this AI experiences suffering. I don’t think you could ever prove that conclusion, but for sake of argument, lets say you do it. Then how could you compare the amount of suffering of the AI to the amount of suffering a human experiences?

I don’t think you’d be able to, at least not using any science we can even begin to comprehend today. It just shows that science really has some limitations. And therefore, lack of scientific evidence for something to do with subjective experience (i.e. a hypothesis about a human spirit) really shouldn’t mean all that much to us.

I don’t think it would be possible to compare it from human to A.I. But I don’t see why you couldn’t make comparison from A.I to A.I or Human to Human. Yea I totally give that to you, technically you can never “prove” that what you experience is reality, like you cannot prove that the colors you see are the colors other people see. But thats moving into philosophy. I mean I don’t know if you could ever describe an Artificial intelligence as suffering or loving, it would be a completely new emotion and we would need new words to describe it.

Well if you say that the human spirit is a subjective intangible experience, an idea rather than an actual thing. Then sure. But I think when people, most people, imagine a “soul” or spirit they are thinking of something that is more than that. I guess it depends on how you define soul. And the way you are defining it I agree with you.

But if you think a soul is something that although connected to the human body is separate and then when we die it continues on still being conscious, then we are in a pickle. How do we know this? What evidence do we have to suggest that this is true? Subjective experience doesn’t cut it here becuase well (and i’m serious when I say this) I see things, especially at night, shadows with white porcelain masks that aren’t there and no one else sees. Now I would not expect anyone to take my subjective experience as any truth of what I see as real.

And of course the scientific method has limitations. In every age it always has. But as we move forward those limitations come down.

But do you understand my point about how we can measure a subjective experience? Although how we give values to the data would be very interesting. And like I said before once the type of data changes significantly I don’t know how applicable it may be.

 

[Abbadon]

Somewhat off topic, but:

This isn’t true at all. It’s belief without reason that is acceptable to you. That doesn’t mean it’s without reason.

I don’t understand. Do you mean it has reasons but you don’t understand it?

 

[RobbyS]

Since science is concerned with the natural, and spirits are supernatural (outside the natural), then science is impotent on the matter. This is not a cop out, just a recentering of terms.
It’s like asking if its religiouslly possible for the theory of relativity to be accurate?
If a question is outside the realm of a discipline, then ask the proper discipline/s.

The old notion that physicsis concerned with secondary causes while metaphysics is concerned with final causes is , I think, still useful. Someone might say that ther notioin of final cause is meaningless, but in any case, “science” cannot anwer many questions that are meaningful to most epople. So many scientists speculate about such matters and come up with things like string theory. Some people say that scientists should not worry with such questions, but the fact is that such speculations often lead to useful theories. Without such speculation. science is left to the skeptics who, historically, are not terribly curious even about their own fields.

 

[jman507]

Anything with a unified nature is a substance. It doesn’t have to be material.

By the way, what does “scientifically possible” mean? I understand the question if it’s “Is the existence of spirits possible?” But I don’t understand what “scientifically possible” even means.

The way I might think about it is, to try to find an analogous way of looking at it. Is red mathematically possible? I could say yes, but to just look at it strictly mathematically one isn’t really going to get a whole lot out of it. One really needs to understand the physics and physiology behind it to really make sense out of the mathematics.

If spirits can interact with nature, then I would say it may be possible to get at someways of detecting spirits, but one is left with many problems from being able to do that. One one would have to try to come up with some reliable method and know when and where to use it. Also one would not be dealing with a dumb natural phenomenon. The spirit as we define it can have some intelligence and it is possible for the spirit to avoid it.

 

[Neil_Anthony]

I don’t think it would be possible to compare it from human to A.I. But I don’t see why you couldn’t make comparison from A.I to A.I or Human to Human.

If we don’t understand it enough to be able to compare the intensity of feelings of an AI to the intensity of feelings of a human, then we really do not understand how subjective feelings work at all. All we really know is that there is some correlation between brain waves and human subjective feeling. It’s a huge leap of faith to hypothesize that the intensity of the brain waves provide an objective method to compare the subjective feelings.

Science in every other field can explain how macro properties are a result of micro properties. But when it comes to the brain, we don’t get any explanation of how brain waves result in subjective experience. There simply isn’t any physical explanation for it. If there was, we could then quantify and confirm the intensity of subjective experiences between two humans or between a human and an AI. But we can’t. So its perfectly reasonable to hypothesize that there is a non-physical ‘thing’, the subject, who experiences the pain or emotions. If it’s physical, then why can’t physics explain it?

Yea I totally give that to you, technically you can never “prove” that what you experience is reality, like you cannot prove that the colors you see are the colors other people see. But thats moving into philosophy. I mean I don’t know if you could ever describe an Artificial intelligence as suffering or loving, it would be a completely new emotion and we would need new words to describe it.

Well, you say that this is moving into philosophy because science hasn’t figured out how it works yet. If by definition, you categorize hypotheses about non-physical things as ‘philosophy’ then by definition, the spirit can only be understood philosophically. But that’s nothing more than semantics, and playing game with truisms. The fact is, just because science has limitations, doesn’t mean we have to cease reasoning about non-physical things.

Well if you say that the human spirit is a subjective intangible experience, an idea rather than an actual thing. Then sure. But I think when people, most people, imagine a “soul” or spirit they are thinking of something that is more than that. I guess it depends on how you define soul. And the way you are defining it I agree with you.

I’m not saying that the spirit is a subjective experience… I’m saying that the spirit enables the subjective experience. The spirit is the ‘subject’ of the experience. So, to understand how that works, we need to understand spirits. If science can only look at physical things, it’ll never be able to explain or quantify the subjective things.

But if you think a soul is something that although connected to the human body is separate and then when we die it continues on still being conscious, then we are in a pickle. How do we know this? What evidence do we have to suggest that this is true?

What we know for sure is:

1. there are subjective experiences
2. physics isn’t capable of explaining how an objective thing like a brain wave causes a subjective experience
   Therefore, the subject must be non-physical, and the subject is real. Therefore there are non-physical things.

But do you understand my point about how we can measure a subjective experience? Although how we give values to the data would be very interesting. And like I said before once the type of data changes significantly I don’t know how applicable it may be.

Well, we can measure the intensity of the brain waves. But we’ll never know for sure if a person with stronger brain waves is really suffering more. All we know is they have stronger brain waves.

 

[fishstick]

Spirits have nothing to do with science, they are supernature.

As for someone bringing up emotions earlier, like joy lust etc. Those are electrical impulses in the brain causing releases of specific neuropeptides that interact with cells in different ways (butterflies in stomach when falling in love, sweaty palms when afraid, etc.)

 

[Neil_Anthony]

Spirits have nothing to do with science, they are supernature.

As for someone bringing up emotions earlier, like joy lust etc. Those are electrical impulses in the brain causing releases of specific neuropeptides that interact with cells in different ways (butterflies in stomach when falling in love, sweaty palms when afraid, etc.)

Hi fishstick,

Are you saying that an emotion like fear is nothing more than a list of physiological reactions, like palms sweating, heart speeding up, increased alertness, etc?

Those are just a list of things that happen to the body. Don’t you experience something more than these physiological changes when you are afraid?

 

[jman507]

Spirits have nothing to do with science, they are supernature.

As for someone bringing up emotions earlier, like joy lust etc. Those are electrical impulses in the brain causing releases of specific neuropeptides that interact with cells in different ways (butterflies in stomach when falling in love, sweaty palms when afraid, etc.)

But do spirits have anything thing to do with the natural world?

 

[crowonsnow]

… physiological reactions, like palms sweating, heart speeding up, increased alertness, etc?

Those are just a list of things that happen to the body. Don’t you experience something more than these physiological changes when you are afraid?

Hi Neil,

How is fear possible absent these physiological markers? And how would you know if a spirit is afraid?